7 Dramatic Monologues by Greek Playwright Sophocles

7 Dramatic Monologues by Greek Playwright Sophocles Here is a collection of ancient yet profound dramatic speeches from The Oedipus Plays by Greek playwright Sophocles. Each dramatic monologue is ideal as a classical audition piece. Also, English students can use them as study resources for analyzing the characters. Antigone’s Defiant Monologue: This scene is a favorite from Antigone and is an excellent exercise for a young female performer. Antigone delivers this commanding speech, defying the laws of the king in order to follow her conscience. Shes a stubborn young woman, intent on civil disobedience in order to fulfill her family obligations and what she believes is a higher law of the gods. She will risk punishment rather than settle for a noble life without honoring her dead brother.Creon from Antigone:  At the beginning of the  play,  Creon sets up the conflict that will lead to Antigones defiance. His two nephews, Antigones brothers, died in a duel over the throne. Creon inherits the throne by default and gives one a hero’s funeral while determining the other was a traitor whose body should rot unburied. Antigone rebels against this and buries her brother, resulting in her punishment. Besides this monologue, there is another at the end of the play  that is also worth y. In the play’s finale, the antagonistic Creon realizes that his stubbornness has led to his family’s demise. That is an  intense, gut-wrenching monologue. The Chorus from Oedipus at Colonus: Greek Drama isn’t always dark and depressing. The Chorus monologue is a peaceful and poetic monologue describing the mythic beauty of Athens.Jocasta from Oedipus the King: Here, the mother/wife of Oedipus Rex offers some psychiatric advice. She tries to allay his anxiety over the prophecy that he would kill his father and marry his mother, unaware that both have already occurred. Freud must have loved this speech.Antigone’s End: Towards the end of her young life, Antigone contemplates her actions and her fate. She is sentenced to be walled up in a cave and die a slow death for her defiance of the kings edict. She maintains that she made the correct choice, yet she wonders why the gods have not yet intervened to bring justice in her situation.Ismene from Antigone: Antigone’s sister, Ismene, is often overlooked in student essays, which makes her a terrific topic to analyze. This dramatic monologue reveals the duplicitous nature o f her character. She is the beautiful, dutiful, outwardly obedient and diplomatic counter to her stubborn and defiant sister. Yet, they have lost both of their parents and their two brothers to suicide and duels. She counsels a safer course of obedience to the law, to live another day. Oedipus the King: This monologue is a classic cathartic moment. Here, Oedipus realizes the wretched truth about himself, his parents, and the terrible power of fate. He has not escaped what fate foretold, he has killed his father and married his mother. Now, his wife/mother has committed suicide and has blinded himself, determined to become an outcast until he dies.

Education and Social Mobility Aspects in Dickens's Nicholas Nickelby Essay

Education and Social Mobility Aspects in Dickens's Nicholas Nickelby - Essay Example Dickens obviously was happy that his attack on the kind of schoolmasters of the time typified by Squeers had hit its mark, and here we have an instance of an author who has found social authority. After the success of Pickwick Papers, Dickens was secure in the knowledge that he could become an established writer, but that he wanted to become a novelist was decided at the time of Nicholas Nickleby, as Chesterton so eloquently points out: 'It must be remembered that before this issue of Nicholas Nickleby his work, successful as it was, had not been such as to dedicate him seriously or irrevocably to the writing of novels. He had already written three books; and at least two of them are classed among the novels under his name..... the Sketches by Boz, The Pickwick Papers, and Oliver Twist......Had he continued along this line all his books might very well have been note-books......We might have lost all Dickens's novels; we might have lost altogether Dickens the novelist....All his books might have been Sketches by Boz. But he did turn away from this, and the turning-point is Nicholas Nickleby'. (Chesterton, 1911) Thus, Nicholas Nickleby became the ... struggle he had to make to reach eminence as a writer, his work also became a voice that decried all that was ill with education and the issues involving social mobility during his time, and from his public activities in both these areas, we can see that he realises that power and authority, and wields it consciously in his writing. As Cairns says of Dickens and his contemporaries in his work Figures of Finance Capitalism: Writing, Class, and Capital in the Age of Dickens : 'Professional novelists became not only providers of relatively lucrative cultural products, but also voices of great social authority, and representatives of that middle-class wisdom and success ..... The novel became a locus of middle-class symbolic power....'(Cain, 2003) 2.1 Personal Background To understand Dickens's treatment of the issues involving education and social mobility in Victorian society, one needs to understand the influences on him at various periods of his life, and the environment which made him what he was. Born to a genteel family lineage, Dickens had an early encounter with poverty, and simultaneous fall in social status. In 1824, when barely twelve, he was taken away from school, separated from his family and packed off to labour in a North London shoe-dye factory as a consequence of his father's financial incompetence. Even though he could escape the squalor within a year owing to a windfall inheritance, the experience he went through during this time was to become a life-defining moment for him. The trials he went through at this factory had a profoundly psychological effect on him: 'In the entire district there was not a single boy whom the sensitive Charles could have accepted as a playmate. His own room was a miserable garret overlooking a damp, malodorous court.

How drug use in the 60's and 70's affected society - then and now Research Paper

How drug use in the 60's and 70's affected society - then and now - Research Paper Example Alcohol has been abused since the 60’s and has left a number of family devastated, as the families’ sole bread winners abuse the drug which may eventually lead to their deaths or insanity (Teff. 1975). The economy was affected as abled body people who could improve the economy became victims of drug abuse. Today, alcohol is also being abused and has devastating effects on the society ranging from road accidents as a result of heavy drinking to murder and suicidal cases in families (Abraham. 1988). Alcohol is not the only drug that has been abused; we have many cases of bhang and nicotine illegal drug use. In fact in the 60’s, cocaine was highly abused as there was no proper way to curb its use (Avraham. 1988). In the 60’s illegal drug abuse was on its optimum among sports men and sports women, as well as musicians and top celebrities; here athletes and musicians used to take performance enhancing drugs so as to boost their performance and confidence respectively. Drug use among adolescents was and is still a nightmare in our societies for a number of reasons. Adolescents today, who are basically involved in illicit drug use, are simply separating themselves from the normality of society as a way of ‘liberation (Teff. 1975). This has tremendous effects on America societies, as these kids end up joining gangs, partaking in crimes and terrorizing American societies. This was also the case in the 60’s where adolescents who engaged in drugs were a complete nightmare to societies as they were the pillar of almost all crimes. Many dropped out of school leaving their parents devastated. Drug misuse also affected both societies by introducing and expanding prostitution. Many of those practicing prostitution in today societies are basically youths who run away from home as a result of drug abuse. This is a disgrace to society and a country as a whole as it lacks morality. In the 60’s prostitution too

Performance management article Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Performance management article - Essay Example Measurement of performance is through the collection, analyzing and dissemination of data to assess the production of an individual, group or organization as a whole. For a company’s success in the field, goals are structured as a means for the company to determine its success. This success rate can be measured through financial capacity, the rate of growth of the company or in terms of the quality of the services rendered. By measuring and creating ways to measure the development of the company, it is possible to measure the success of the company. True to many, the business clichà © ‘what gets measured gets done’ is complemented by the study. For a business that is starting up, profit generation is their main objective. Therefore, the managers in charge structure policies that will aid the workforce to attain the necessary goals setup. Use of bonuses is a commonly used method to incentivize the workforce to working better and efficiently. However, change is dynamic and therefore the company’s goals are subject to alteration. As such, the company must know the correct performance measurements systems that help the organization in achieving its necessary goals (Neely, 1999). In the recent past, the use of financial systems to measure performance was common. This enables the firm to know whether they were making the most on their profits, as this is the main objective of any business. From the data collected, the firm can only get the results in figures but no more deductions can be made. However, as the years have passed companies have sought for more complex systems show An example of its implementation is the choice for a firm to focus more on its customer relation services rather than on sales of the company. This will assist the firm to position itself in the market as an organization that cares about the quality of customer care services. The revised measurement will enable the organization to alter

Prospect theory in decision making

Prospect theory in decision making Prospect theory is an important theory for decision-making between alternatives that involve risk. The theory departs from the traditional expected utility theory because it attempts to explain how people really make decisions between risky alternatives, which attempts to model optimal decisions. This vital difference leads to the prospect theory departing from the traditional framework in important ways. Unlike the traditional approach, it attempts to incorporate psychology into the consideration process to provide a behavioural approach to portfolio selection (Barberis, Nichola, Huang, Santos, 2001). During the course of this report, we will first look at how prospect theory differs from the traditional expected utility theory to gain a better understanding of the concept. Following this will be, a discussion of the key elements of prospect theory the value function including a small reference to endowment effect and the status quo bias, reflection and framing effect, isolation e ffect and probabilistic insurance. Towards the end, we will have a precise look at the applications of prospect theory equity premium puzzle and home bias. The traditional finance theory assumes that investors try to maximize expected utility of wealth when they are making decisions under uncertainty. However, many studies have shown that the underlying assumptions of the traditional theory do not accurately describe how people actually behave when choosing among risky alternatives. This inadequacy leads to the weak correlation between the utility theory model and real decisions. There are four key features [that] distinguish prospect theory from mean-variance theory, which is the traditional approach to modelling decision-making. First, according to the traditional theory people choose among alternatives based on how the outcomes will affect their overall wealth. However, according to prospect theory people evaluate outcomes in terms of gains and losses relative to a reference point. So decisions are based on how the outcome changes their income, in relation to their reference point. (Han Hsu, 2004). Second, the mean variance analysis makes the assumption that people are risk averse in all their choices. In contrast, prospect theory agents are risk-averse in the domain of gains but are risk seeking when all changes in income are framed as losses. The third feature of prospect theory is loss aversion. An individual is loss averse if she or he dislikes symmetric 50-50 bets and their degree of aversion increases with the absolute size of the stakes. In other words, prospect agents dont perceive gains and losses of equal amounts evenly. For example, the loss of a particular amount is more painful then the pleasure received from the gain of an equal amount. This is also known as the endowment affect. People place a higher value on a good that they own than goods that they do not, and are willing to accept a higher risk if it means that they can avoid the loss. Finally, in utility theory risk is treated objectively, by its probabilities. In contrast, the utility under prospect theory is not dependant on the original probability but rather on the transformed probability also known as decision weights. They do not just measure the perceived likelihood of an event. Instead, they measure how events will impact the desirability of prospects. (Han Hsu, 2004) This feature of the prospect theory helps explain a number of violations of expected utility theory, including the famous Allais paradox. People in prospect theory tend to overweight small probabilities. This overweighting explains why people buy lottery tickets offering a small chance of large gain, and insurance protecting against a small chance of a large loss (Kahneman Tversky, 1979). The four elements explained above and how risk is evaluated is usually explained by the value function. The concept of the value function is based on gains and losses from a reference point, as explained in the first element of prospect theory above. Value function stresses the importance of the reference point (starting point) although changes and movement are observed more compared to the resting point, due to the concept of gains and loss. The following is the prospect theory value function: à Ã¢â€š ¬= non-linear weighting function V(x-r) = the value function R= the reference point PT = à ¢Ã‹â€ Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ à Ã¢â€š ¬ (pi) v(xi r) This function creates an S-shaped curve (Figure 1.1) Figure 1.1 The curve clearly highlights the reference point, from where onwards gains and losses can be observed. It displays that as your gain increases the desire for it decreases demonstrating that people are risk averse when it comes to gains. On the contrary, as the loss increases the fear for more loss increases hence showing that people are risk seeking regarding losses. These two factors are highlighted in the graph by the steepness of the relevant sides. As gains increase the steepness decreases (indirectly proportional) and as losses increase the steepness increases (directly proportional) (Maher, 2010). An example for this irrational behaviour is how a random sample would prefer to spend their $400. Gain Option A, where you will have a 100% chance of gaining $200 Option B, where you will have 50% chance of gaining $400 and a 50% chance of gaining $0 Loss Option A, where you will have 100% chance of losing $500 Option B, where you will have 50% chance of losing $1000 and 50% of losing $0 In this scenario the vast majority of people would choose option A for gain and option B for loss confirming that people weight their losses more compared to their gains. As they would settle for a rational gain (even if it is small) but when it comes to losses they would prefer risk seeking to limit their loss. The determination of utility relating to the gain or loss mirrors the concept of psychophysical principle concerning the evaluation of outcomes. This reflects loss aversion which then implicates two specific aspects. Firstly, the endowment effect i.e. people would be willing to demand a higher value on product that they themselves own rather than a similar product that they do not. The second implication is status quo bias, in this case people like things to stay relatively in the same position they are in so they remain at the status quo they are in. In this scenario any sort of change either good or bad is taken to be a disadvantage. Another key element of prospect theory is the reflection effect, which states that while investors are risk averse over prospects involving gains, they are risk seeking over prospects involving losses. This effect explains the observed preference for definite small gains over uncertain large gains and in opposition preference for uncertain large losses over small certain losses. A remarkable interpretation of the reflection effect is that, a replacement of all positive payoffs by their negatives (reflection around zero) reverses the choice patterns. For example, a choice between a 90% choice of getting 2000 and a 45% chance of getting 4000 would be replaced by a choice between a 90% chance of losing 2000 and a 45% chance of losing 4000. This effect implies a risk-averse preference for high probability of the relatively safe 3000 gain, but a reversed preference for the risky option in the loss domain. Reflected choice patterns reported by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) were fairly high, i.e. 86% of subjects chose the safe lottery (90% chance of 3000) in the gain domain but only 8% chose the safe lottery when all payoffs were transformed into losses. (Laury Holt, 2000).An important implication of this is the S shape of the value function in prospect theory that is concave for gains and convex for losses. It was also identified, that if the same decision problem was worded differently, the preferences of decision makers differed as well. This was referred to as the framing effect. Prospect theory implies a unique relationship of risk seeking to positive and negative framing- negatively framed problem encourage risk seeking. For example: When a group of investors were faced with the following two propositions: A gamble that offers a 10% chance of winning $95 and a 90% chance of losing $5 and another gamble B offering a 10% chance of winning $100 and a 90% chance of winning nothing. It was found that although the outcomes on both the gambles were the same, 74% of investors chose option B as paying $5(negative as compared to a loss) for the gamble than simply losing made the gamble more acceptable. Von Restorff created the concept of the isolation effect, a way to make something that conforms within a similar a group stand out like a sore thumb. An isolated item, in a list of otherwise similar items, is better remembered than an item in the same relative position in a list where all items are similar. This is a way of distracting attention from one event when the alternative holds exactly the same probability and can be of some help in explaining the prospect theory in decision making in relation to investments. Kahneman and Tversky (1979) used the example of a two-stage test to better explain the use of the isolation effect practically in a behavioral finance situation. Isolation effect is important to show the irrationality of investors in situations that would normally produce a rational effect. This typifies the psychology of an investor having their attention diverted away from using a mean variance analysis of a situation. The first step of the test is a .25 chance of progression to the second stage and a .75 chance of gaining nothing. The participant is asked to decide before the first stage whether, if successful, they would take 3000 or a 0.8 chance of taking 4000. It must be noted that in this game, the participant is choosing between 0.2 chance of 4000 or a 0.25 chance of 3000, the expected value of the former being greater (800 rather than 750). Of the 141 participants that Kahneman and Tversky (1979) tested, 78% chose the first option of the guaranteed 3000. The reasoning behind this is the greater appeal of the sequential certainty of the choice; most participants ignored the first stage of the experiment and just looked at the second test as a basis for their decision rather than weighing up the potential outcomes. The concept is a strong indicator to suggest against all investors being mean variance optimising, there is clear evidence that given the right circumstances people will ignore the obvious rational choice and accept a decision based on the higher valuation of certain prospects. This evidence of irrational preference conforms to the reflection theory where the certainty of a small gain is valued higher than a chance of a large gain. Using this psychological weakness in peoples logic the Von Restorff effect distracted attention from the overall probability and coerced the decision maker into accept a decision based on something that stood out. The rising popularity of insurance policies has been used by supporters of the utility function as strong evidence of the concavity of the utility curve for money. However Kahneman and Tversky (1979) demonstrated that not all insurance policies support this idea, basing their argument around the example of probabilistic insurance. Probabilistic insurance has also been used to highlight that decision weights tend to overweight small probabilities and large probabilities, but underweight moderate probabilities (Wakker, Thaler and Tversky, 1997). Standard insurance provides the purchasers with a zero percent chance of any loss after a given incident, however a probabilistic insurance policy leaves the purchasers open to a small possibility that they will not be fully reimbursed. Following is an example of standard versus probabilistic insurance. Suppose you want to insure iphone4 for the coming year, you can either insure your phone with Natwest bank for  £10 a month or with ABC insurance who offer to insure the phone ever other day throughout the year for  £4.50 per month. Most people would view the offer by ABC as unattractive and prefer to go with the deal offered by the bank of  £10 per month. In this situation the purchaser is underweighting the fifty percent chance of damage to the phone occurring on a day that he or she is covered by the ABC insurance policy. This example demonstrates that reducing the probability of a loss from p to p over 2, is less valuable than reducing the probability of a loss from p over 2 to zero (Tomas and Viilar, 2002). In contrast to the iphone4 insurance example given above, expected utility theory implies that probabilistic insurance is superior to regular insurance. This aversion towards probabilistic insurance is noteworthy because the most avid purchaser of insurance is still subjected to some level of risk. For example, most household contents insurance policies are void if the purchaser forgets to lock their front door. This type of insurance represents many types of protective action, where the user pays a certain cost to reduce the probability of an undesirable event. For example, the purchase of a steering wheels lock or a carbon monoxide detector (Kahneman Tversky, 1979). Applications of Prospect theory The underlying principles behind Prospect theory have been used on a number of occasions to explain a range of financial anomalies. The real world aspect of the model means it offers genuine explanations for some of the most prominent puzzles such as the Equity Premium Puzzle and Home Bias. Equity Premium Puzzle The equity premium puzzle refers to the empirical fact that stocks have outperformed bonds over the last century by a surprisingly large margin. Since 1926, the annual return on stocks has been around 7% while the return on bonds has been around 1% so, $1 invested in the SP 500 on January 1, 1926 was worth $1100 by the end of 1995, while $1 invested in T-bills was worth $12.87. In 1985, Mehra and Prescott noted that under the assumptions of Expected Utility Theory, these abnormally high and low returns are difficult to explain. In 1995, Banartzi and Thaler offered an explanation to the puzzle based on key features of Prospect Theory. They claimed that the puzzle is caused mainly by two factors derived from the Prospect theory; loss aversion (investors being more sensitive to losses than gain) and a short evaluation period (investors checking their portfolio too often). This combination they termed Myopic Loss Aversion. They argue that the attractiveness, and therefore value of a stoc k depends on the time horizon of the investor and frequency of evaluation. The more frequently somebody evaluates their portfolio, the more likely they see their losses and suffer from loss aversion. Putting this application into more contexts, a risky asset paying 7% per year with a standard deviation on 20%, like the average stock, has a probability of loss or gain of around 50%. For a loss averse investor who evaluates frequently, the stock market appears very risky. Considering this, an investor who is prepared to wait a long time between evaluating will find stocks much more appealing as there is an increased chance of them closing their position with a positive return. In turn, long-term investors will be willing to pay more for an identical stock than a short term, frequently evaluating investor. Prospect theory has other various applications associated with it apart from the above mentioned equity premium puzzle. The Home bias phenomenon is another such example. This phenomenon contradicts the mean variance framework, which elucidates the benefits of international diversification helping in the minimization of risk of a given securitys expected return. Home bias states that investors hold more domestic stocks and few foreign stocks than the optimal amounts actually predicted by the mean variance optimization (French and Poterba, 1991). Prospect theory explains this tendency of investors to choose domestic stocks. It says that one of the reasons for this could be a greater familiarity of investors with domestic assets and lower downside risk. This compels investors who may think globally to act locally (Campbell and Kraussl, 2006). Consider a foreign stock and a domestic stock with identical distribution payoffs. Since the foreign stock seem less familiar than the domestic on e, investors may perceive it as having higher variance of payoff leading to low allocation to the foreign stock. However a direct implication of this is derived from the portfolio choice theory that home bias would decline as investors became more familiar with foreign stocks ( (Han Hsu, 2004). Thus, while the prospect theory can explain this behaviour of investors to concentrate risks on single assets rather than to hold a well diversified portfolio, it fails to explain why the single asset chosen by investors are domestic ones. In addition, the argument posed by Stracca (2002) says that if prospect theory is an accurate description of human attitude towards risk, the benefits of international diversification would be reduced to a significant extent. Conclusion We have looked over the principal elements behind the prospect theory proposed by Kahneman and Tversky in 1979. Prospect Theory is an alternative descriptive model of decision making under uncertainty, which incorporates real life choices and psychological analysis. Firstly, within prospect theory investors evaluate their outcomes in accordance with a reference point and make decisions based on how the outcome changes their wealth in relation to this unique reference. Within the expected utility theory, this relative level of wealth is not accounted for. Another key assumption behind prospect theory is the risk averse and seeking behaviour of investors under different circumstances. Investors are risk seeking in terms of losses and risk averse when it comes to profits. The assumptions of an endowment effect and decision weights are also included within the theory, where people place a higher value on a good that they already own and, in contrast to expected utility theory, risk is in corporated not by the original probability but by transformed decision weights. The S-shaped value function curve for prospect theory show this risk seeking and averse behaviour in investors, a reflection effect. The idea of framing is also a key element of prospect theory, where if the same decision problem is described in different words, it can lead to different preferences. Within the theory also is an isolation effect, where devices are used to draw additional attention to something that would otherwise conform, and probabilistic insurance, where decision weights tend to overweight small and large probabilities, but underweight moderate probabilities. The real world assumptions behind prospect theory have been used to explain a number of financial anomalies. We finally looked into prospect theorys applications to the equity premium puzzle and home bias which offer explanations to these anomalies.

A Midsummer Night?s Essay :: essays research papers

This play reaction is written about William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The play is a comedy and it was copyrighted in 1974, it was published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. In this particular book the play starts on page 222 and ends on 246.The opening of the play is the reader finds out the basic environment that they’re in and the Duke (Theseus) is proclaiming that he shall be wed to the Queen of the Amazons (Hippolyta) in five days. The reader also learns (in the exposition) about most of the characters that are in the play. The exciting force basically begins when Egeus brings his daughter (Hermia) to the Duke, but she is already in love with Lysander. Hermia’s father is completely aware, and against the entire relationship between the two and he demands that Hermia be judged by the Duke and he tells her that if she doesn’t marry Demetrius (her fathers choice for a husband) she will die unless she wants to live her entire life a virgin. This situation results in the decision for Hermia and Lysander to elope, in a distant wood outside of Athens.When the couple elopes the admirers (people who have crushes on Hermia and Lysander) follow them into the woods where the climax takes place. Puck is sent out to give one Athean man a love potion. When Puck is sent out to do so he gave the potion to a sleeping and unaware Lysander. When Lysander awakes he saw Helena (the admirer of the admirer of Hermia, Demetrius) and falls completely in love with her. Meanwhile Hermia is wondering what happened to her love.In the falling action Puck fixes what he has done wrong , and all the lovers are extremely confused.Then all the couples marry one another and all live happily ever after. The main characters in the play are Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius. Hermia is the daughter of Egeus and the mutual lover of Lysander. She is a very beautiful,nice, and free spirited girl. Lysander is madly an love with Hermia but Egeus says that he is not fit to be her suitor because Egeus believes that Lysander is just interested in . . . "play". In all actuality Lysander is really in love with Hermia. Helena is madly in love with Demetrius and there is nothing anyone can do to dissuade her in her feelings.

Civil War Essay

The revived Ku Klux Klan was merely the most obvious and sinister symptom of general and widespread discrimination. The new Ku Klux Klan opposed many more groups than the blacks opposed by the first Ku Klux Klan. The first Ku Klux Klan group only discriminated against blacks and they weren’t known as the most discriminating group unlike the revived Ku Klux Klan. The revived group of the Ku Klux Klan not only discriminated African Americans, but Immigrants, Catholics, and Jews as well. Even though the revival of the KKK was short-lived, they caused a lot of damage. The Klan put their beliefs into the practice of terrorizing those people they disliked. The KKK group operated throughout the South during the Reconstruction era. The Ku Klux Klan’s long history of violence grew out of the resentment and hatred many white southerners felt in the aftermath of the Civil War. Blacks, having won the struggle for freedom from slavery, were now faced with a new struggle against widespread racism and the terrorism of the Klan. The Ku Klux Klan terrorized African Americans by putting fear into their lives. The Ku Klux Klan enjoyed terrorizing their homes, beatings, whippings, as well as lynching male members of the family and making the surviving members get them down. Many poor farmers and laborers thought that their wages would increase if they drove the Black people out of their state. Black people were a lot cheaper to employ as they were forced to work for lower wages than white people due to their skin color. They used to parade through the streets where black people lived carrying blazing torches and crosses. The massive immigration of Catholics and Jews from eastern and southern Europe led to fears among protestants about the new people, and especially about job and social competition. Since the immigrants were competition to the members of the Ku Klux Klan they also terrorized them to scare them away. The message was very clear, the new Klan was going to mean business and that meant expanding its list of enemies. Tatiana Ortega Period:4 President Lyndon Johnson Lyndon B Johnson, our 36th president is well known as the â€Å"Great Man to Society†. Johnson was very considerate when it came to the fellow American people as well as the African Americans. President Lyndon Johnson was a great inspiration to the African Americans. During the 1960s when he took office, President Johnson was the most significant figure in securing civil rights for African Americans. President Johnson made a he impression in office his first couple of years. He obtained passage of one of the most extensive programs in the nation’s history â€Å"The Great Society† program became Johnson’s agenda for Congress. His mission was to aid education, attack on diseases, Medicare, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. While Johnson was in office the country made spectacular explorations of space in a program. Lyndon signed the Civil Rights Act of 1960 as well as the Voters Act. When he left office peace talks were underway, he did not live to see them become successful, but unfortunately died. President Johnson was â€Å" The president who helped end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among all the of people of all races. † President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the most comprehensive civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. President Johnson’s Great Society reforms lead to lasting changes in the society. Even though the Vietnam War sunk Johnson’s presidency, it didn’t effect him in the outrun. Till this day he is known as the greatest president of all time.

Taming the shrew

In a Rom-Com characters and staging can be very important as an audience will usually expect a main and sub plot. In act 5 scene 2 this is shown by the fact that the two main characters Petruichio and Katrina, the two main sub-characters Bianca and Lucientio and two of the sub characters Hortensio and the Widow-who is a new character- and all main characters from both plots are in one room,-which shows the importance of this scene. -talking and celebrating. The women then leave which shows that the men are now the most important characters of the moment. The limelight then shifts to each man in turn. – Petruichio, Hortensio, Lucientio, and Baptista, before moving on to the servants. When the women return, the limelight brings Katrina's character to centre stage, whilst also bringing Bianca's and the Widow's shame to light. The way Shakespeare has structured the play is so that that the focus of the audience is never on one person or persons for any sustained amount of time. This allows the audience t experience the play from multiple characters point of view. This is done to illustrate how different males and female are as social groups; Shakespeare then uses Katrina as a pivotal character to bring the male and female groups together. There are various themes throughout the play; there was however two main themes, being marriage and appearance versus reality, both of which are split into several sub-themes. The sub-themes for marriage include Language-being the frequent use of sexual innuendos such as the common use of the words â€Å"head, horn† and â€Å"butt†-and consummation. shown when Petruichio asks Katrina to bed. The sub-theme for appearance versus reality disguise and deception, the main plot of this theme is disguise of language and appearance- Petruichio disguises his language to tame Katrina, and Lucientio and Tranio use physical disguises so that Lucientio can woo Bianca. The end of the play is quite interesting as Shakespeare sexual innuendos and puns to lighten the mood and to create a merry atmosphere. Read this – Puns in the Importance There is also the mentioning of hunting â€Å"O sir, Lucientio slipped me like his greyhound, Which runs himself and catches for his master† which is used as an analogy for wooing the women as well as the wager, â€Å"Let's each one send onto his wife, and he whose wife is most obedient to come at first when he doth send for her shall win the wager which we will propose† that ends in the most unexpected outcome; When the wager is resolved Katrina begins her monologue which includes similes twinned with alliteration. â€Å"It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads†-which means frowning can spoil a woman's beauty but also uses alliteration to make the similes effect more profound-as well as lists, repetition, â€Å"Thy husband is thy lord, thy life thy keeper, thy head thy sovereign, one that cares for us† commands, † Come, come, you froward and unable worms â€Å"and rhetorical questions. â€Å"What is she but a foul contending rebel and graceless traitor to her loving lord? † The language of the speech dampens the mood, which is then lifted by light jesting at the end. In conclusion I would say that Taming the Shrew fits with most Rom-Coms but does however differ in many ways; the main discrepancies are the problem of not knowing whether the main couple is happy or not, as well as the introduction of a new character in the final scene and the fact that the final speech which is usually given by a male and is normally inviting and merry not witty, cynical, sarcas tic and critical.